🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <uEYFxc9nX8WX083yn@mbnet.mb.ca>,
Nathan T. Wild <natewild@mbnet.mb.ca> wrote:

>In C, why would one use open and DOS int handles rather than fopen and
>stdio file handles?
>
>Is there some speed advantage or differnet functionality?

open() is for raw I/O.  You use read(), write(), lseek(), ltell()

fopen() is for buffered I/O.  You can use fread(), fscanf(), fgets(),
getchar(), putchar, fprint(), fwrite(), fseek(), ftell(), etc.

For certain applications, you can get away without buffering.  But
often it is easier to do the programming if you don't have to worry
about unneeded system calls and buffering gives you that.

Raw I/O is faster if you are, for instance, sucking the entire contents
of a file into memory at once.

Buffered I/O tends to automatically include parts of the standard C
library that you may not need (*printf* stuff).

It depends on your goal.  And usually the reasons for using one or the
other are operating system independent.

-- Harold